View full sizeMarvin Fong, Plain Dealer fileFugitives packed the sanctuary at Mt. Zion Church Sept. 22, the first day of Fugitive Safe Surrender.

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Fugitive Safe Surrender, a program that had its start in Cleveland and became a national success story for the U.S. Marshals Service, has been eliminated in what the agency called a cost-cutting move.

More than 34,000 people voluntarily surrendered in 19 U.S. cities. It began at Mount Sinai Church at East 75th and Woodland in 2005. A year later, Congress authorized the program to go national. It went to Phoenix and then other cities across the country.

A marshals' spokesman in Washington, D.C., said the program cost the agency $250,000 a year and didn't fit with its mission -- catching violent fugitives. Money for the program was eliminated this year.

The agency had promoted the program on its website, calling it "unique, creative and highly successful." The information remains on the site, despite the program's elimination.

"The U.S. Marshals Service performed an exhaustive process review of investigative programs relating to violent crime reduction mandates and determined that, while Fugitive Safe Surrender's goals were laudable, the agency could not sustain this unfunded initiative," spokesman Jeff Carter said in a statement last week.

Carter said the agency's mission is to go after violent felons. Fugitive Safe Surrender targets non-violent felons who have outstanding warrants for misdemeanors and low-level felonies, he said.

The program's supporters say it has helped take violent fugitives off the street. Nationally, one in 10 people in the program surrendered on felony charges, and people accused of rape, robbery, child abductions and even murder have surrendered.

Supporters said Fugitive Safe Surrender has resolved tens of thousands of old cases across the country, made dramatic inroads into neighborhoods and changed lives.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Joan Synenberg praised the program for averting a number of potential tragedies from what she called "desperate encounters," where a person wanted for a crime unexpectedly meets up with an officer.

Daniel Flannery, the former director of the Institute for the Study and Prevention of Violence at Kent State University is writing a book on the program.

"It's extremely beneficial," he said of the program. "People have continued to show up to put their lives back together, to live without looking over their shoulders."

The program was born out of tragedy.

Cleveland-based U.S. Marshal Peter Elliott sketched out the plan on a napkin with Douglas Weiner, a former assistant Cuyahoga County prosecutor, at an Aurora coffee shop in 2004. It was four years after fugitive Quisi Bryan shot and killed Cleveland police officer Wayne Leon. Bryan had an outstanding warrant for a parole violation when Leon made a traffic stop.

Bryan knew he would be sent back to prison after his arrest, so he shot the officer in the head.

Elliott's mission was to prevent other deadly confrontations by cutting down the number of fugitives on the streets. Elliott and Weiner partnered with judges, local law enforcement and the religious community to offer a faith-based partnership.

Flannery's research shows that three out of four people who showed up at Fugitive Safe Surrenders across the country would have stayed away if not for pastors and other religious personnel working the event.

The first Safe Surrender in Cleveland drew 838 fugitives. Since then, thousands more have turned in at other programs across the country, including a what was then a record 6,578 in Detroit in 2008. That was topped by 7,431 in Cleveland last fall.

Mark Wolf was skeptical when he surrendered in September to authorities in Cleveland. He had been living on the streets of Pittsburgh and was looking at 4 1/2 years in prison for forgery charges.

He agreed to return when his mother told him of Fugitive Safe Surrender. He pleaded guilty to the charges, was given probation and ordered to drug treatment. He has been sober for nearly six months.

"That program has been a godsend," Wolf said.

U.S. Marshal Peter Elliott

Elliott declined to comment on the end of the program, referring questions to agency's spokesman in Washington. The national office said the $250,000 used to run the program was spent on a national coordinator, travel and publishing.

The agency has a budget of about $1.2 billion, according to government reports.

The marshals service eliminated Fugitive Safe Surrender at a time when it received some of its greatest praise. In September, the Ash Center for Democratic Governance at Harvard University named it one of its Bright Ideas. In the same month, U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge of Cleveland bragged about its work on the House floor.

But now, local leaders are wondering whether the program in Cleveland can continue without the marshals service. Continuing the program would require a great deal of coordination. Each event involves local judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, clerks and probation officers to walk defendants through the system.

"To me, this is the type of program that needs to be picked up -- by someone, absolutely," said the Rev. C. Jay Matthews of Mount Sinai Church, who worked with Elliott during its initial stages. "It has become a safe way to handle challenging moments."

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